QUIZ: 2013 Stories – Test Your Smarts!

As the door closes on 2013, it's time to revisit some of the stories featured in DNews (just to see who's been paying attention!). From the shocking to the sad to the downright strange, it's been a fascinating year.

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Question 1 of 20

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1.AnewspeciesofwhichcreaturehasbeendiscoveredinNewYork:

bedbug

rat

cockroach

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A new species of cockroach, one that can withstand freezing temperatures, has taken up residence in the Big Apple, scientists confirmed. The species, Periplaneta japonica, is native to Asia. It's not entirely certain how the resilient bug got to America's biggest city, but scientists speculate it may well have arrived in soil used for plants in the High Line, an elevated linear park that first opened in 2009 but is still under construction.

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Remains of a human/Neanderthal hybrid were found at a rock shelter called Riparo di Mezzena in the Monti Lessini region of Italy. That's according to a paper published in PLoS ONE, which argued that the lower jaw found in the area contained a kind of intermediate structure between classic Neanderthal bone structure and the modern human lower jaw. If humans ever did mate with Ewoks, that evidence has yet to turn up, though there's always hope.

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The Illuminati was founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian law professor who claimed he was the recipient of arcane knowledge passed on to him by a "higher power." Secrecy was a key tenet of Weishaupt's philosophy and that "Shhh!" factor helped ensure that even though the Illuminati was banned in 1783 and essentially kaput by 1890, "the Illuminati" would continue to live on in conspiracy circles even, it seems, to this day.

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Using data gathered by global detectors used to detect ultra-low frequency acoustic waves, scientists were able to determine that the shock wave from the meteor had so much fun traveling around Earth that it made the trip twice. The meteor was actually just 17 meters wide.

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Deutsche Post DHL, the world’s top mail and logistics services group, launched a test delivery drone of its own called "Paketkopter," which in German means, unsurprisingly, "package copter."

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Veterinarian Melba Ketchum led a team of researchers that claimed its genetic tests proved the existence of everyone's favorite mystery beast, Bigfoot. But large grains of salt ended up being taken with Ketchum's claims, as reputable science journals rejected her work and she ended up self-publishing the study. Her study didn't fare too well under peer review, and so -- alas -- scientifically conclusive proof of the big fella's existence continues to elude us. Maybe next year!

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Argus II uses 60 electrodes implanted in the retina along with glasses that have a special mini-camera. They in essence replace the function of the degenerated photoreceptor cells in people with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease.

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The British ship's "remains" yielded a crystal that, through chemical analysis, was confirmed to be an Icelandic Spar, or calcite crystal, believed to be the Vikings' mineral of choice for their fabled sunstones. Ancient lore has it that the Vikings used such special crystals for navigation when it was very cloudy. While no such stone has yet been found at a Viking archaeological site, the British artifact could buttress the notion that the stones did exist.

that a predecessor species of ours was handy enough around the house to build sophisticated tools long before Homo sapiens stomped on the Earth

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More likely than the possibility of humans being older than first thought is that an earlier species figured out how to do the stone-tipped spear thing. Homo heidelbergensis, aka Heidelberg Man, who lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia from at least 600,000 years ago, is a good suspect.

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Tim Cook owns the quote, made during the iPhone 5s launch in September. It was a clear dig at rival smartphone maker Samsung, whose Galaxy S4 was set to debut soon after the new iPhone went on sale.

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The cuddly sea creatures have been documented forcibly copulating with, and in the process killing, juvenile harbor seals off California. While bizarre, the behavior isn't much different from standard sea otter mating, which often includes forceful mating with female otters that can end in death for the female.

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Grainy sonar imagery captured off an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati represented the debris from Amelia Earhart's plane, according to The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. The organization is dedicated to learning the fate of the famed aviator, who with her two-engine plane Electra disappeared on July 2, 1937.

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The deadliest tornado in U.S. history was the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925, which tore through 219 continuous miles of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Nearly 700 people were killed in that single tornado, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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The astronomers picked up four powerful, high-energy radio signal bursts of unknown specific origin but intergalactic home addresses. They came from different parts of the sky and were far removed from the galactic plane. Scientists aren't sure what may have caused the bursts. Possible sources include colliding magnetars (neutron stars with super-strong magnetic fields), evaporating black holes, and gamma ray bursts that involve a supernova.

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The latest edition of the mental health handbook published by the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM-5, does not include sex addiction, formerly known as hypersexual disorder, among its classified disorders. So, not so much.

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According to the order form for longtime jumpsuit maker TonySuits, a wingsuit currently can cost anywhere from $1,050 for a beginner-level wingsuit, up to $1,750 for the expert "Apache Rebel" suit.

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19.Amythological"gatetohell"wasfoundearlierthisyear.Whatwasit?

A river said by legend to be the River Styx, the mythological boundary between Earth and the Underworld.

The entrance to a movie theater showing all 47 'Friday the 13th' movies.

A cave in southwestern Turkey celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition

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Announced in March at a conference on Italian archaeology in Istanbul, Turkey, the discovery of Pluto's Gate yielded, among its vast ruins, the remains of a temple, a pool and a series of steps placed above the cave -- all matching the descriptions of the site in ancient sources.

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20.Withjustafewweeksleftin2013,Yutumadebignews.It:

landed on the moon

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On Dec. 14, China's Chang’E 3 lander lowered its rover Yutu (meaning "Jade Rabbit") onto the surface of the moon. The spacecraft had departed Beijing on Dec. 2, hit lunar orbit five days later, and then prepped for touchdown on the lunar surface. With the time delay between Earth and the moon for issuing commands at only about 2 seconds, Yutu "can basically be joysticked from Earth," as the Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla put it.

played to a sellout crowd of 80,000 fans in its native Dublin, Ireland